In the distribution of digital objects, information specifying rules for the decryption for encrypted objects and/or information establishing the right to use the digital objects in particular ways or by particular entities may be distributed along with or embedded in the digital objects. For example, an MP3 file may be executable as music by a computing platform. The MP3 file may be encrypted, and the rules for decrypting the MP3 file and/or the information establishing the right to play the music may be included as a digital envelope for the MP3 file. The rights and decryption information are therefore tightly coupled to the MP3 file. When relatively large digital objects, for example movie files, are transmitted over a network, significant resources such as computer time, disk cache, bandwidth, and electricity may be utilized. Because the rights and/or decryption information are tightly coupled to the digital objects, significant resources are utilized whenever the rights and decryption information are transmitted over a network.